| Advantages | Disadvantages |
| Less equipment downtime | Upfront costs – keeping equipment well-maintained requires investment |
| Longer asset life | More labor-intensive, so you’ll need more staff on hand |
| Fewer interruptions to critical operations | Potential for over-maintenance |
| Increased workplace safety and improved compliance with OSHA |
Maintenance Phase in SDLC
Matt is a project manager assigned to deliver a software application to an insurance company. After Matt’s project team completes the coding and implementation phases of the software development life cycle (SDLC), the product is deployed to the insurance company. Now that the insurance company has the software, and the software is working as intended, Matt’s team meets with the insurance company to provide instructions for the maintenance and upkeep of the software. The maintenance phase of the SDLC occurs after the product is in full operation. Maintenance of software can include software upgrades, repairs, and fixes of the software if it breaks.
Software applications often need to be upgraded or integrated with new systems the customer deploys. It’s often necessary to provide additional testing of the software or version upgrades. During the maintenance phase, errors or defects may exist, which would require repairs during additional testing of the software. Monitoring the performance of the software is also included during the maintenance phase.
TEST
What happens during the maintenance phase?
Software is monitored to ensure it continues to function, and repairs or upgrades are performed as needed.
Who is responsible for maintaining software?
The customer
Which of the following is NOT part of the maintenance phase?
Developing a prototype for new software
When does the maintenance phase occur?
Once coding is complete
What are the key outcomes of the maintenance phase?
Maintain software functionality, upgrades of coding and software repairs
Maintenance Phase: Examples
Matt meets with the insurance company to provide maintenance instructions, and explains that the insurance company is now responsible for the upgrades and monitoring of the software. Now that the software is fully operational, the project team closes the project. A few weeks later, the software application has an error that prevents employees from updating critical customer data. The business leaders refer to their maintenance plan and attempt to repair the defects in the software program. After a few days of maintenance and coding, the company’s information technology (IT) team repairs the defect and the software is fully operational.
The information technology team continues to monitor the software to ensure it produces the company’s desired result. If any of the employees have additional problems with the application, the employees can create a repair request for the information technology team. Once the IT team receives the request, it then identifies where the issue occurs, determines the cause of the issue and develops code to resolve the defect. After the team repairs the defect, the team notifies employees that the issue has been fixed. The company’s employees can now resume full use of the software.
Maintenance Phase: Outcomes
Matt’s project team is responsible for connecting the software functionality with the customer and the needs of the customer. During the maintenance phase, the project team works closely with the customer to ensure that the customer understands how to monitor the software functionality and what to do when software needs an update or repair. Some of the outcomes of the maintenance phase are to keep the system functioning properly, update the code for the software when necessary and upgrade the software when required.
Summary
Alright, let’s take a moment to review what we’ve learned!
The maintenance phase happens after the project team deploys the software and it’s fully operational in the customer environment. During the maintenance phase, the customer monitors the software to ensure it continues to operate according to the coding specifications. In addition to monitoring software functionality, the customer also repairs defects and upgrades software when necessary.
Some of the key outcomes of the maintenance phase are to ensure the software continues to operate, coding requirements are updated, and software is upgraded when required.